


Refugee

by apple_pi



Category: Lost, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Genre: Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-16
Updated: 2005-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:15:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apple_pi/pseuds/apple_pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie thought later it was a Tuesday when the man washed up, but it could just as easily have been a Sunday, or a Wednesday, or any other f-cking day of the week on this island, where boredom sometimes rose up so strongly over him that he wanted to drown himself, hang himself, f-ck someone, anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Refugee

**Author's Note:**

> Written in the interval between seasons 1 and 2 of Lost.

Charlie thought later it was a Tuesday when the man washed up, but it could just as easily have been a Sunday, or a Wednesday, or any other fucking day of the week on this island, where boredom sometimes rose up so strongly over him that he wanted to drown himself, hang himself, fuck someone, anyone. (Sun was starting to look good, and Charlie thought she liked him a little bit, maybe felt sorry for him; he worked out a fantasy where he talked her into having sex with him because he was so sad, poor sad ruined recovering drug addict rockstar Charlie, and he added that fantasy to the other, similar ones, that involved Jack or Sawyer or Sayid or Michael or Locke - he bet Locke would be fun in the sack, fucking control freak would make a great top - or Kate or Shannon, whiny blonde bitchy Shannon.)

He never did anything about the fantasies, any of them, unless you counted going off by himself and having a wank doing something. He didn't, really, and he was getting pretty tired of having his right hand play so many roles for him. Of course - Charlie snorted to himself when he thought this - his right hand was probably pretty tired, too. Ha, not bad, that one, and he scribbled it down in the notebook Hurley'd got for him when he said he wanted to write songs.

Charlie never did anything about anything; none of them did, these days. They picked fruit and hunted a little, and tended the big stupid useless fucking signal fire. Locke and Sayid and Jin fucked around with the hatch, out in the jungle, and Jack walked around looking noble and patching up skinned knees and sunburns. Michael looked like hell, mostly, these days, wondering where his kid had been taken but too fucked up to go looking. Sawyer had read every book there was to read, and now he tried to look like a good guy - only to get into Kate's knickers, Charlie knew, because Charlie recognised a con when he saw one (call it professional courtesy, maybe), and Sawyer might even try to convince himself he was one of the good guys for a while, but Charlie knew better. Hurley fished - he was getting better at it - and Sun dug in the dirt and Shannon sat on her (fine, toned, tanned) arse and watched her, pretending to help (Charlie aimed a sardonic little nod of recognition at Shannon, too, when he thought of it). Claire was all wrapped up in baby Aaron (T.H., Turniphead, Charlie still called him, which annoyed Claire), and now the infant was safe she didn't seem so interested in Charlie anymore, and besides, she'd found another bird who'd had kids, still had kids, back in the Other World where they'd been before, and now Claire and this other bird did nothing but coo and cluck over baby T.H., and the other bird didn't like Charlie. Was Not a Fan, as Liam had used to say with a smirk.

Charlie had taken to playing a certain... game, he thought of it, kind of. He kept the little blue Virgin Mary in his backpack, wrapped in three shirts, but he'd long since broken it in half. A couple of the baggies were secreted here and there - one buried under that big tree with all the vines that looked like Bob Marley's hair, another under the frog-shaped rock on the point, at the beach - but one Charlie kept with him. He thought of it as insurance. If he was hurt, like Boone had been hurt, or like Michael was hurting - if his body was broken or his mind was, well. Charlie had insurance. 

The game was that he liked to look at his insurance. He liked taking the baggie out, when he was alone, and just... holding it, sometimes: in his fist while he was walking; or cradling it in his hand while he sat alone at the edge of the jungle, looking at the water. He thought about opening it, but he remembered three days of puking his guts out, wretched agony, shivering, burning, wracking misery. He thought he could talk Sayid into taking him back to the Beechcraft (he'd never find it on his own), but what if he couldn't? So. Charlie played his game, thinking about what circumstances, exactly what circumstances, would justify opening the little baggie, and he didn't open it.

He knew, too, that he shouldn't. Knew it intellectually, and in his heart, and in his gut.

He was walking toward the beach on the Tuesday or Sunday or Wednesday when the man washed up. He didn't have anything to do there, but he was bored. He'd painted his nails with Shannon's varnish (nicked while she sat by Sun and worked on her saintly act for Sayid) and he swung them to dry as he walked, though they were already dry, barely sticky now.

Charlie wondered if overwhelming, complete, total, killing boredom counted as a circumstance for opening the baggie. He reached into his pocket and fingered it, pulled it out and cursed as the tacky nail varnish caught on his trousers and smeared a little. He'd stopped and was looking at the smudged paint, the baggie palmed loosely, when someone - what was his name? Mario? Martin? Mark? - came bursting down the path and smashed into him.

The baggie went flying, as did Mario Martin Mark, and as did Charlie of course because he was the smallest fucking person on the island, bar T.H., especially now that Walt was gone.

"FUCK!" Charlie shouted, scrambling about already, looking for the baggie. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Sorry!" The man jumped up. "Somebody washed up on the beach, in a little raft - is Jack at the caves?" But he was already gone.

WherewherewherewherewherewasitTHERE.

Sunlight glinted off plastic and Charlie grabbed the bag and pocketed it again, furious with himself for having it out, for nearly losing it, but already the fury was taking second place to curiosity. A man had washed up?

Charlie broke into a run. Something to do, something to see--boredom staved off for a while, at least.

*

"He's severely dehydrated," Jack said. The refugee - was that the right word, Charlie wondered?--had been brought to lie under one of the tarp canopies where Sawyer had left some of his shit before all that stuff happened with the raft and he seemed to lose interest in it. The new bloke was a little wizened man, smaller even than Charlie. Impossible to tell his age, but his hair was a blond rat's nest, his clothes ragged tatters of material: striped pants, a loose whitish shirt. No shoes, no belt, no jewelry.

Charlie watched from among a ring of others as Jack trickled water into the man's mouth. His lips were cracked, and his tongue, when he opened his mouth seeking more, a swollen, ugly thing. Charlie made a face, but he felt for the bloke, the more so when Jack pulled back a moment later and didn’t give him more. The refugee's eyes opened, startling green in his sunburned face, and he croaked something unintelligible, but undoubtedly a request for more water.

"Not yet," Jack said clearly and slowly. "It'll make you sick."

The man closed his eyes again, and Charlie felt another stab of pity as the bloke seemed to sink back into his bad dream.

Jack must've seen it on Charlie's face, because he gestured to him, picked him out of the crowd. "Charlie, c'mere." Charlie crouched beside him, and the others began to disperse, back to their minor little secondary lives, as far as Charlie was concerned. "I need someone to sit with him. Can you do it?"

"Sure," Charlie said. "What does he need?"

"Give him a little water at a time, and I'll have Shannon or Sun bring you some broth from that boar we got two days ago." Jack peered at the man and then wrinkled his nose. "And maybe we can get him washed, too - would that bother you?"

"Nah, just get someone to bring me a cloth and some fresh water. And maybe clean clothes?"

"He's about your size," Jack said. "Do you have anything in your backpack?"

Charlie thought about the little blue Virgin Mary and shook his head. "Nothing in there." Charlie felt a twinge of guilt. "But you could look in me other suitcase," he added. "It's by my guitar case."

"All right." Jack gripped his shoulder as he leveraged himself up. "I know you'll take good care of him."

And Charlie fucking hated Jack for saying that, and hated himself even more for wishing it was true.

*

"Alright, mate," Charlie muttered, drizzling water into the man's mouth for the third time. "Time to clean you up." The refugee had shown no awareness again, though he did swallow the water each time Charlie spilled a bit into his mouth. Charlie stripped him and washed him as carefully as he could. A little fellow, yes, but wiry. Not an ounce of spare flesh on him, but Charlie guessed that could be from starvation, or maybe dehydration? Muscles were still there, strong biceps and forearms, pale skin that switched shockingly to reddish-brown where his clothes hadn’t covered him. His hands were calloused strangely: small, hard, grubby.

Charlie sponged the man's body quickly and managed to get a pair of rugger shorts onto him before he woke up. He was holding a t-shirt, wondering how to get it onto the refugee without jostling him all about, when the man woke up.

"Water?" he rasped, and Charlie nodded and put the t-shirt down; he picked up the water bottle and held it to the man's mouth. 

"Not too much, the doctor said," Charlie started to say, but the wee canny bastard had grabbed the bottle and upended it before Charlie so much as knew he'd any energy in him at all.

A moment later they both found out why the doctor had given his orders; the man rolled over and vomited (all over one of Sawyer's books and was he going to be pissed off, Charlie grinned), flat on the ground, barely enough strength to hold his head out of his own sick.

Charlie could deal with this, at least, and he did: grabbed the man and hauled him up and over again, back onto the blankets and waved away a woman - Sarah? Sally? Samantha? - who had approached. She didn't look awfully sad to be sent away.

Charlie propped the man up slightly and held up the water bottle he'd dropped. "A mouthful, to get the taste out," he said, and the man closed his eyes in understanding. When Charlie gave him his mouthful he obediently (if weakly) spat it back out into the cup Charlie held up. Charlie tossed the soiled water away and then got up to fetch a branch, which he used to sweep sand and dirt over the puddle the refugee had created. It was pathetically small--there'd been nothing but a few swallows of water in the poor sod's belly, it looked like.

"Can you talk?"

"Aye, a little." His voice was slurred, and his eyes, open again, followed Charlie as Charlie sat back down and picked up the bottle again. "Please..."

"Just a swallow, then, like the doctor said." Charlie held the bottle again, tightening his grip when the man's hand came up to touch the plastic. But he made no move to protest when Charlie pulled the bottle away, only let one finger trail along the clear material, looking at it with puzzlement on his face before gazing again at Charlie.

"The doctor's here, then?" the man asked. He sounded relieved. "And my other shipmates? Where am I?" His eyes went to the blue tarp over their heads and stayed there.

"You're the only person who's washed up," Charlie said. "How do you know Jack?"

"Ah Jesus, the Captain here, too," the man murmured, his eyes sliding shut. "I should've known that where you'd find the doctor, there'd be Lucky Jack, too..."

Charlie's head was starting to hurt. "Jack _is_ the doctor," he protested. "I mean, he's our doctor, anyway... what?"

"Oh, Christ," the refugee sighed, and he fell asleep again, head lolling against the blanket, one hand loose upon the sand beside his makeshift bed. 

Charlie hadn't asked his name.

*

Barrett Bonden, that was his name, and when they determined, the next time he awoke (some hours later), that his doctor was not Jack Shephard (Charlie had to work to remember the doc's last name), that his captain Lucky Jack was no one Charlie knew, Barrett wept a little, weak and obviously ashamed to do so but unable to help himself. No tears fell, but he shook a bit, and his breath caught in a hoarse, painful sob.

"Oi, it's alright, they're probably just somewhere else," Charlie lied, touching the man's hand nervously, looking around. Where was Sun, or Claire for chrissakes? "Have some more water," he offered, though he'd been steadily trickling it into the man as he slept. "Have some broth."

Barrett sat up weakly, ate a little, his face smoothing, breath easing. "How did you all get here, then," he said, gesturing with his spoon to the encampment.

"Plane crash," Charlie said. "From Sydney to Los Angeles, five-fucking-thousand miles off course or summat, and we've been stuck here for fucking months. This place is crazy," he confided. Barrett's head tilted, and Charlie told him of some of the events of the past weeks, rambling on, slowing the other man if he showed signs of eating or drinking too quickly. "So since they took Walt it's like we're all fucking paralysed," Charlie said bitterly, "running around in circles like idiots, stewing in boredom, waiting to see what happens."

"What's a plane?" Barrett said suddenly. He tugged at the hem of the nylon shorts. "And these trousers, I've never seen anything like them, or that sail." He gestured to the tarp overhead, then lifted the water bottle. "And what kind of glass is this made of, is it from Los Angeles? Is that in the China Sea somewhere? I know the Chinese can do strange things with gunpowder and carvings, so maybe...?"

He tilted his head again, and Charlie made an effort to close his mouth.

*

"He's fucking _crazy_ ," Charlie hissed to Jack and Locke and Kate and Sawyer and Sayid and Hurley. "He thinks he was shipwrecked off a ship called the _Diane_ or something, he says the last time he was in a port it was 1810, for fuck's sake, he was something called a coxin. What the fuck is a coxin?" Charlie appealed to them, eyes bugging out. Bonden was asleep under the tarp again, a little ways off, and the seven of them were gathered at the edge of the trees. "He thinks he's at war with the fucking French," Charlie added, throwing his hands upward.

"We might be," Sayid said dryly. "Rousseau, you know."

"It's a sign," Locke said, fingering his belt knife.

Jack aimed a dirty look at him. "Maybe he's delusional." 

"Maybe he doesn't want to tell us the truth," Sawyer said.

"Maybe he doesn't want to tell _himself_ the truth," Kate said.

"It's spelled coxswain," Hurley said, "coxin? It's really spelled c-o-x-s-w-a-i-n." 

They all looked at him.

"What?" He rolled his eyes. "Can't the fat guy know stuff? I used to read Horatio Hornblower, okay?"

"Look, Charlie." Jack had on his best daddy-knows-best voice, and Charlie struggled, as usual, between wanting to bash his fucking teeth in for it, and wanting to do whatever Jack said in hopes of sparking a little fatherly approval. "All I can think of to do is answer all his questions and keep an eye on him. Can you do that?"

"If he kills me in my sleep I swear to fucking god I'll come back and kill you from beyond the grave," Charlie threatened. "At least give me a fucking gun, please?"

"NO." 

The other six said it loudly enough that Barrett Bonden woke up.

*

"You know you're insane," Charlie said to Barrett a week later. They were walking to the caves, because Bonden wanted to wash himself again, and he didn't like Charlie's rugger shorts anymore.

"I'm beginning to wonder," said the smaller man, but he didn't seem worried about it. He trudged on through the undergrowth. "Or maybe you all are. Had you thought of that?"

"I've known I was insane for years," Charlie said loftily, but he couldn't maintain it; he snickered. "Seriously, though, when are you going to 'fess up and just come out with it, tell us you worked on a ship for a living, you left Hawaii or Fiji or something and there was a shipwreck and you just thought it would be funny to pretend you were a fucking 200-year-old coxswain or helmsman -"

"- or both," Bonden put in.

"- or both," Charlie said, throwing up his hands, "and actually you're from Glasgow and you've a nice flat where you stay when you're not out being a coxswain or a helmsman or pretending to be insane."

"I am from Glasgow," Bonden said. "Do you know how to braid a man's hair?"

*

When Barrett was done bathing he selected a pair of track pants and a loose cotton shirt from Charlie's suitcase. Then he sat still while Shannon braided his hair, reaching back to pat it when she finished it off with an elastic. "Better than many a tiemate I've had," he said, and she simpered a little at his sweet smile; Charlie felt a little surge of jealousy, then schadenfreudish satisfaction when her face fell. As it did, because Barrett was unaccountably nervous around the women of the camp. He hardly looked them in the eye, and seemed to find most of them rather intimidating. At Shannon's simper he'd ducked his head and turned away, still courteous but just barely.

Which was fine with Charlie, because he found Barrett Bonden intriguing and good-looking (especially now that he was clean and no longer wizened with sun and lack of water and his hair was tamed) and Charlie had been wondering for five of the last seven days how he might get Barrett to fuck him. And was Barrett gay, anyway? The fear of women suggested _yes_ (though, Charlie thought, it could as easily signify heterosexuality, since women were even scarier when you wanted them), but Bonden also seemed resolutely masculine - there was nothing about him, other than his long, sun-fried hair, that was feminine. The issue of his sanity or lack thereof occasionally reared its head during Charlie's musings on these topics, but Charlie put it down firmly. Who cared if Barrett was crazy, at this point? Everyone on this fucking island was crazy (damaged, skittish, gun-shy, just plain weird) to some extent - if they hadn't been when they got here, the island itself seemed determined to get them that way. Barrett wasn't violent (so far), and he was funny, and despite his scars and not-so-good teeth, he was sexy as fuck. The scars might be viewed by some as interesting, and as for the teeth - well, Charlie was British. Good teeth weren't a real issue for him, on the make-or-break scale of fuckability.

Once his ablutions were done, Barrett was willing enough to walk back to the beach; he liked it better there, and Charlie was thinking of bringing his guitar case down there, and maybe some more clothes.

The lack of things to do didn’t appear to bother the sailor (Charlie had stopped questioning Barrett's livelihood, at least, since the man knew more knots than half the S&M fetishists in London), though the slipshod schedule of life did. Bonden was happy to sit around teaching Charlie how to splice rope and happy to scale a tree for fruit, but he wanted to know when he should be doing each thing, and Charlie's shrug and "Whenever, mate," irritated him. Thus the clockwork daily walks to the caves and back, to strengthen Barrett, and his personally imposed schedule, which included getting up just after dawn to roll his blanket neatly up and then sitting on it, watching the sunrise while he carved things in wood with the small knife Locke had given him when he asked. Charlie had threatened Barrett with death when the refugee tried to get him up at the same hour, but for the last three days, Charlie'd lain awake anyway, looking at Barrett's almost-still form, crouched comfortably on the dirt, his eyes forever on the horizon.

Halfway back to the beach, Charlie gave up and asked him: "Have you ever fucked a man, Barrett?"

Barrett stopped where he was and turned to look at Charlie. "Sodomy, you mean?"

"Buggery," Charlie agreed. 

"Yes." Bonden turned around and started walking again, his face having gone curiously blank just before he removed it from Charlie's view.

"Wait, wait, mate." Charlie leapt forward and grasped his shoulder. "I'm sorry. It's just - I think you're kind of, uh, y'know. And I like, um, men, too."

Barrett's eyes were clear and cool and green, and his mouth, which could smile very sweetly indeed, was thin and tight. "You like men."

"To, to sleep with. To have, uh, relations with," Charlie stuttered, trying, uncharacteristically, to speak in what seemed to be Barrett's parlance, and despising himself for doing it, for falling for the act. "Just - fuck. Sorry. I just wondered," he finished weakly.

"Charlie," Barrett said, and Charlie realised that it was the first time the other man had said his name. "In the navy, in my navy," he looked pained for an instant, "a man can be hanged for sodomy."

"Christ," Charlie said.

"Aye. So tell me," again that little cock to his head, and Charlie's belly twisted uncomfortably, "what is it like... here. For you to, as you say, like men."

Charlie stammered. "It's, y'know, fine. I mean, it's sort of, some people get all worked up about it, say it's a sin and shite. But mostly it's okay. Mostly people just don't, don't care."

"Okay. It's okay." Bonden knew that word, he'd asked Charlie what it meant on the first day they'd spoken. "So if I were to kiss you, touch you -" the green eyes narrowed slightly - "fuck you. If I were to fuck you, no one here on this island would be shocked?"

Charlie laughed, breathless. "Um, they'd be shocked if you fucked me right out in front of them." He sucked in air, grinning stupidly, he knew. "But no, if I went up to Jack and Kate and Sawyer and said _Hey, Barrett's with me, we're a couple, we're lovers_ \- no, they wouldn't care. They wouldn't be shocked."

"That's interesting," Barrett said, and he started walking again.

*

That night after Bonden had gone to sleep, Charlie slunk into the forest to have a wank. He didn't like going into the trees in the darkness - bad things, bad shit started itching at the corners of his mind then - but he only went a little way, and he was quiet. He leaned against a tree and pushed his trousers down and did it, thinking of how Barrett's mouth had said _If I were to fuck you_ and Charlie hunched over a little and came, breath hitching. He zipped up quickly - hated these fucking trees, hated them _so much_ \- and felt the tiny bulge of the baggie in his pocket. He hadn't taken it out in seven days. When he got back to the beach, Barrett was still sleeping. That was a relief; the refugee seemed to wake up every four hours or so, and he was a light sleeper no matter how long or short he'd been out.

Charlie pulled his blanket over himself for protection from the steady, cool wind off the sea, and he slept deeply.

*

When Charlie woke up in the morning, Barrett had stopped carving on driftwood and was peeling fruit with his knife instead, the thick rind of green spiraling neatly away from his blade as he looked from it up at the sea and then back down again. He glanced backward at Charlie and handed a slice to him before being asked, cutting himself a piece immediately afterward.

"What do you want to do today?" Charlie asked once the sweet fruit had taken the fuzz out of his mouth. "I could teach you to play golf."

Bonden shot him a startled look. "I'm Scottish, I've seen golf played," he said.

"But have you played it?" Charlie asked archly.

"Christ, no," Barrett said; Charlie laughed. "And I don't want to, either. Though thank you for thinking of it."

Charlie shrugged and scratched his neck. "What, then? Nothing much? I could get my guitar down here, been wanting to play a bit."

"I was wondering if we might go find some place private and do what we spoke about yesterday," Barrett said, and he turned his head and looked right at Charlie.

*

Charlie hadn’t thought to ask anyone (or think at all) about condoms, but at least Barrett wouldn't have AIDS, Charlie said inwardly. Of course by that point it was a bit late to think about it, as Barrett was behind him, pressing inward. And what the fuck, it wasn't as though Charlie actually believed Barrett's goddamn fiction, was it? Thoughts about venereal disease and condoms and what the fuck had men done about such things in the nineteenth century anyway? all disappeared as Charlie fought to relax, breathing deeply, groaning slightly with the burn of it. They'd only spit and sweat, plenty of both, and Barrett's hands on Charlie's bare hips gripped tightly to counter the wet slide of moisture on his skin.

"Alright lad?" Barrett panted, nudging his way inward, and Charlie nodded dizzily and let his head hang and wished he could reach his own prick to squeeze it, to ease this. Then Barrett was all the way in and a small, calloused hand slipped around Charlie's hip to grip his cock. "Better like this, I think," came the lilting murmur against his shoulder, and Charlie gasped and nodded again, his thighs trembling as Barrett began to move, his hand and his cock, and everything dissolved into the slick pleasure of being filled, filled and split and then rocked, forward on his knees and back again, Barrett's breath rushing hot across his back, Charlie's hips flexing slightly so Barrett's cock bumped that perfect, sweet spot. Charlie let go, slipped away into the rhythm and heat of it. He heard himself crying out a little with each thrust and wished he could see how Barrett looked, how his cock looked, sliding into Charlie's arsehole, deep and tight and wet and "Ah, ah, ah," Charlie chanted as Barrett's thrusts grew harder and his hand tightened on Charlie's dick. "I'm coming," Charlie cried and he did, arching his back, hands sliding forward off the blanket to curl into fists in the soft leafy mould that carpeted the clearing as his head bowed to the dirt.

"Ah, Christ," Barrett sighed a few moments later and his body slammed hard into Charlie's, in contrast to his soft, sweet voice and he came, too. Charlie held himself up through it, the blanket under his knees rubbing burns onto them; when Barrett pulled out, panting, Charlie eased up gratefully and then turned, sinking down, pulling Barrett with him.

"That was good," Charlie said, and Bonden nodded. Charlie stroked his back and tugged gently at the braid, letting his breathing slow, waiting to feel the heartbeat in Barrett's narrow chest quiet. "Thank you."

"Ah, thank you, lad, Charlie," Barrett said, and this time when he sobbed, abrupt, a few tears managed to fill his green eyes before he choked them back. "I'm sorry."

"Don’t be," Charlie said. "I've done it. Cried, after." He cradled the smaller man a little, staring up through the gap in the trees, hoping no monsters came stomping through the jungle. They'd been pretty quiet. "You've got a lot of, y'know. Pent up, well, emotions. You've lost a lot." He stroked Bonden's bare shoulder, traced a scar down his scapula and wondered how in the world he'd retained the word _scapula_ , somehow.

"Ach, I'm fine," Barrett said, sitting up. "We should get up. Time to walk to the caves, anyhow." He dressed slowly while Charlie watched, then smiled at him. "Do I have to dress you, then?" he asked.

"I undressed you, when you first came ashore," Charlie said.

"And I've returned the favour, I think," Barrett said. He grinned, picking up Charlie's trousers and tossing them to them.

Charlie sat up and worked them over his feet.

"What’s this?" Barrett said, and when Charlie looked up Barrett had the baggie in his palm, looking curiously at it. "It looks almost like sugar," he said, and Charlie couldn't move as Barrett pushed a hole in the plastic and rubbed his finger in the heroin, then smeared a few grains onto his tongue. "Ugh," he said, and Charlie stared as half the baggie spilled onto the sandy dirt. "Oh, I'm sorry, lad," Barrett said.

Charlie got up, finally, and came to take the little sack from Barrett. "No," he said. "It doesn’t matter." He looked at it, held it and watched as a tiny flood of brown grains spilled across his palm from the hole Barrett had poked in it. "It's nothing, really. Just something I had around." He turned and threw the baggie as far as he could - saw the sun gleam on plastic for an instant before it vanished into the verdure - then washed his hands carefully with the water bottle before scuffing earth over the little bit of pale brown he could see on the soil. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I need a bathe," Barrett said. 

"I do, too."

They didn’t hold hands as they walked back to the path, and Charlie didn’t look in the direction he'd thrown the plastic bag. He looked at Barrett, and wondered if he was insane.

*

Charlie couldn’t quite bring himself to throw the blue Virgin Mary away, and he never let himself think about the two buried baggies at all. He wouldn’t need them, he was sure. Even if Barrett got tired of fucking him (which he showed no signs of doing), they would still be friends. And besides, Charlie was less bored these days, since he was helping Barrett and some others build a launch (that's what the sailor called it, anyway). They hoped to have it done by the time the trade winds shifted, and Charlie sawed and hammered and tied knots, secure in the knowledge that he'd be on the launch when it sailed.

And he didn’t let himself think about whether he might need to bring some insurance along for the trip.


End file.
